The 30-year-old, who has a Ghana­ian fa­ther, told lifestyle mag­a­zine “Boa”, which he him­self launched, that the ex­plo­sive is­sue of im­mi­gra­tion in the coun­try has only made the sit­u­a­tion worse.

“When I’m warm­ing up on the side­lines I can of­ten hear mon­key chants. Me, who played so many matches for Ger­many,” said the Ber­lin-born Boateng, who has played 76 times for the Ger­man na­tional side.

“Some­times they’ll say things like ‘go home to your own coun­try’ or they’ll just shout some­thing like ‘you black shit’.”

Boateng, whose brother Kevin-Prince chose to play for Ghana, de­scribed sev­eral racist in­ci­dents from his child­hood when par­ents of op­po­si­tion play­ers made him cry with their abuse.

He also be­lieves the refugee is­sue in Ger­many has made peo­ple more wary and li­able to la­bel peo­ple by their ori­gins.

“One for the Ger­mans, one for the mi­grants,” said Boateng who was left out of the Ger­man squad on Fri­day for forth­com­ing matches against Rus­sia and the Nether­lands.

“And now there’s an­other for Ger­mans with for­eign par­ents who are not white, but who feel en­tirely Ger­man be­cause they grew up here. Now we’re be­ing looked at with an air of sus­pi­cion.”